Judge awards $1m for prison beating

- File photo
- File photo

A HIGH COURT judge has awarded almost $1 million in damages to four men who were beaten by prison guards in the airing yard of the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca in 2015.

In awarding a total of $775,000 to the four, including interest and costs, Justice Carol Gobin said the conduct of the guards was “reprehensible, oppressive and unprovoked.”

She said the beating of Adisa James, Nicholas Owen, Kernal Lewis, and Quillon Hudson, all of whom were incarcerated at the MSP, was “administered in a co-ordinated manner by several officers just to make a point.”

The four men claimed that on September 21, 2015, while in the airing yard outside building 13 in the remand section, they heard the alarm go off and several guards ordered them to kneel. They said they were beaten with batons.

They also alleged they were not taken for treatment immediately, but only two days later, although they were bleeding and in severe pain. The alleged beating took place after another inmate stabbed James in the shoulder.

In her ruling, Gobin had some harsh words for the conduct of the guards. “They were making sure that a rowdy inmate, a person of influence, given to inciting violence, such as Adisa, knew who was boss,” she said.

In defence of the claim, the State alleged that the incident was as a result of a fight between prisoners who are members of the two rival gangs, Muslim Gang and Rasta City.

Gobin said it was “hard to imagine” that the men’s injuries could have been inflicted in the way the State alleged in its defence, and they were more consistent with a classic baton injury.

“The failure to produce anything at all has caused me to ask whether there was in fact a fight as described, by the officers and unfortunately the answer on the evidence or lack of it, points only in one direction.

“But the utterances which accompanied the assaults they describe, provide an explanation – this was not a random assault. There was a motive for it. They were making sure that a rowdy inmate, a person of influence, given to inciting violence, such as Adisa, knew who was boss,” Gobin said.

She was critical of what she saw as an attempt by the prison authorities to “deliberately obstruct” the men’s attempts to have their lawyers take photographs of their injuries after the incident, even after the court made an order for it to be done.

“If the authority would go to such lengths to avoid lawyers’ access to claimants even in the face of a judge’s order, then I do not believe that its officers would feel any compunction to fabricate the account that was given by the witnesses in court,” she said.

She also found it unacceptable there was no documentary evidence by the prison authorities of the violent incident and pointed to the testimony of the guards about non-functioning cameras at the section.

“While I am not insensitive to the fact that many government institutions face shortages and inadequacies in the maintenance of plant and equipment, I refuse to believe that the cameras at the most violent and volatile section of the Maximum Security Prison have not been working for years. “I have concluded albeit reluctantly, that if there is an iota of truth in this alarming disclosure, at all, it may well be that it suits the authorities to have no independent contemporaneous camera footage in cases like this.

“In other words, if this is true, it may be deliberate, and this does not assist the prison authority’s credibility,” she said.

Gobin also said the compensation to each man was not “windfalls,” adding, “We are not just printing money in favour of prisoners.”

She suggested that the millions being spent to compensate prisoners could be used for programmes to train prison officers.

“We are not unmindful of the fact that several prison officers have paid the ultimate price when they have been victims of hits allegedly called from behind prison walls. Several have lost their lives. Their families have lost loved ones and breadwinners,” she said.

“I respectfully suggest that millions of taxpayer dollars that Government continues to pay to inmates in these cases may be better applied to programmes for training prison officers and for providing sufficient equipment, and increased manpower and security for our prison officers so that systematic resort to violence to establish control by officers is reduced or eliminated. “

The men were represented by attorneys Gerald Ramdeen and Darryl Heeralal. Keith Scotland, Jacqueline Chang, Amrita Ramsook, and Savitri Maharaj appeared for the State.

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